Peter Straub

Peter Straub
Peter Francis Straub (March 2, 1943 – September 4, 2022) was an American novelist and poet. He wrote numerous horror and supernatural fiction novels, including Julia and Ghost Story, as well as The Talisman, which he co-wrote with Stephen King. Straub received such literary honors as the Bram Stoker Award, World Fantasy Award, and International Horror Guild Award. Per his New York Times obituary, he "brought a poet's sensibility to stories about ghosts, demons and other things that go bump in the night."
Early life and education
Straub was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Gordon Anthony Straub and Elvena (Nilsestuen) Straub. At the age of seven, Straub was struck by a car, sustaining serious injuries. He was hospitalized for several months and used a wheelchair until he had re-learned how to walk. Straub has said that the accident made him prematurely aware of his own mortality.
Straub read voraciously from an early age, but his literary interests did not please his parents; his father hoped that he would grow up to be a professional athlete, while his mother wanted him to be a Lutheran minister. He attended Milwaukee Country Day School on a scholarship, and, during his time there, began writing.
Straub attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he discovered "the various joys of Henry James, William Carlos Williams, and the Texas blues-rocker Steve Miller, a great & joyous character who lived across the street." He earned an honors BA in English in 1965 and an MA at Columbia University a year later. He briefly taught English at Milwaukee Country Day, where he "enjoyed a minor but temporary success as Mr. Chips-cum-jalapenos, largely due to the absolute freedom given him by the administration and his affection for his students, who faithfully followed him as he struck matches and led them into caves named Lawrence, Forster, Brontë, Thackeray, etc., etc. On his off-hours, he fell in love with poetry, especially John Ashbery’s poetry, and wrote imitations of same." In 1969 he moved to Dublin, Ireland to work on a PhD and start writing professionally.
Career
After mixed success with two attempts at literary mainstream novels in the mid-1970s (Marriages and Under Venus), Straub dabbled in the supernatural for the first time with Julia (1975). He then wrote If You Could See Me Now (1977), and came to widespread public attention with his fifth novel, Ghost Story (1979), which was a critical success and was later loosely adapted into a 1981 film starring Fred Astaire. In 1980, he published the fantasy Shadowland. After returning to America he wrote Floating Dragon, which won the August Derleth Award. He coauthored the horror-fantasy The Talisman with his longtime friend Stephen King.
After a fallow period, Straub re-emerged in 1988 with Koko, a non-supernatural (though horrific) novel about the Vietnam war. Koko was followed in the early 1990s by the related novels Mystery and The Throat, which together with Koko make up the "Blue Rose Trilogy". These complex and intertwined novels extended Straub's experiments with metafiction and unreliable narrators.
in 1996, Straub published the mainstream thriller The Hellfire Club. In 1999, Straub published Mr. X, a novel with a doppelgänger theme. The novel pays homage to H. P. Lovecraft, as the eponymous Mr. X writes in a similar style. In 2001, Straub and King rejoined forces for Black House, a loose sequel to The Talisman which tied that book in with King's Dark Tower Series. 2003 saw the publication of Lost Boy, Lost Girl followed by the related In the Night Room a year later. Both won the Bram Stoker Award.
Straub edited the Library of America volume H. P. Lovecraft: Tales (2005). In 2009, Straub edited the Library of America anthology American Fantastic Tales.
Straub published several books of poetry. My Life in Pictures appeared in 1971 as part of a series of six poetry pamphlets Straub published with his friend Thomas Tessier under the Seafront Press imprint while living in Dublin. In 1972 the more substantial chapbook Ishmael was published by Turret Books in London. Straub's third book of poetry, Open Air, appeared later that same year from Irish University Press. The collection Leeson Park and Belsize Square: Poems 1970 – 1975 was published by Underwood-Miller in October 1983. It reprinted much of Ishmael along with previously uncollected poems, but none of the poems from Open Air.
When asked who his favorite writer was, Straub replied "I guess I have to say Henry James. At least that’s what I’d say today. On other days, I might choose Raymond Chandler, or Charles Dickens, or Wilkie Collins, or on other, other days, a real long shot, like Donald Harington. In some ways, John Ashbery will always be my favorite writer."
Straub also sat on the contributing editorial board of the literary journal Conjunctions, and he guest-edited Conjunctions: 39, an issue on New Wave Fabulism.
In 2007, Straub's personal papers were acquired by the Fales Library at New York University.
Straub's final novel, A Dark Matter, was released in February 2010.
In 2013, Straub appeared on the Code Street podcast with fantasist John Crowley.
In 2016, co-author Stephen King said that he and Straub had plans to write a third Talisman book in the future. King says that the collaboration for the series was "natural," and that the two were excited to work together. In a 2021 appearance on the Dead Headspace podcast, Straub said that due to his health, it was unlikely that he would co-write a third Talisman with King.
Reception and influence
A critical essay on Straub's horror work can be found in S. T. Joshi's book The Modern Weird Tale (2001). At the Foot of the Story Tree by Bill Sheehan discusses Straub's work before 2000. John C. Tibbetts wrote a book-length study, The Gothic Worlds of Peter Straub.
In Andrew Shaffer's Secret Santa, a character refers to Stephen King, Anne Rice and Straub as "the unholy trinity" of horror.
Of Straub's contribution to horror King says, "he brought a poet's sensibility to the field, creating a synthesis of horror and beauty" and "he writes a beautiful prose line that features narrative clarity, sterling characterization, and surprising bursts of humor." King told The New York Times that "He was not only a literary writer with a poetic sensibility, but he was readable. And that was a fantastic thing. He was a modern writer who was the equal of, say, Philip Roth, though he wrote about fantastic things." King added that "he was a better and more literary author than I was."
Neil Gaiman paid homage to Straub, writing “One of the best writers I’ve read, one of the best friends I’ve known. Always kind, funny, irascible, brilliant."
Songwriter Nick Cave alludes to Straub's work in "The Curse of Millhaven" and "Do You Love Me (Part 2)". Straub said "Naturally, this pleased me enormously. It is a great honor to have your work alluded to in that way by another artist. I love the whole idea. Nick Cave is a talented, compelling performer and I could see that some of my work would fall very neatly within the territory that interests him. Eventually we wound up e-mailing each other, and he sent me a very nicely signed copy of one of his CDs. It would be nice to meet him one day."
Personal life and death
In 1966, Straub married Susan Bitker. They had two children, Benjamin, and Emma Straub, who is also a novelist. The family lived in Dublin from 1969 to 1972, in London from 1972 to 1979, and in the New York City area from 1979 onwards.
Straub was a jazz aficionado, and saxophonist Lester Young features in his novella Pork Pie Hat. Per WBGO, "He discovered jazz as a boy growing up in Milwaukee in the late 1950s. He gravitated toward Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond, Clifford Brown, Bill Evans and Miles Davis."
Straub died on September 4, 2022, aged 79, from complications of a broken hip. At the time of his death, he and his wife lived in Brooklyn.
Bibliography
Novels
1973: Marriages
1974: Under Venus
1975: Julia
1977: If You Could See Me Now
1979: Ghost Story
1980: Shadowland (World Fantasy Award nominee, 1981)
1983: Floating Dragon (winner of the 1984 August Derleth Award)
1984: The Talisman (with Stephen King, nominee for the 1985 World and Locus Fantasy Awards)
1988: Koko (winner of the 1989 World Fantasy Award)
1990: Mystery
1993: The Throat (winner of the 1993 Bram Stoker Award and 1994 WFA nominee)
1995: The Hellfire Club (1996 Bram Stoker and 1997 August Derleth Awards nominee)
1999: Mr. X (winner of the 1999 Bram Stoker Award and August Derleth Award nominee)
2001: Black House (with Stephen King, 2001 Bram Stoker Award nominee)
2003: Lost Boy, Lost Girl (winner of the 2003 Bram Stoker Award and 2004 August Derleth Award nominee)
2004: In the Night Room (winner of the 2004 Bram Stoker Award)
2010: A Dark Matter (winner of the 2010 Bram Stoker Award)
Short story collections
1990: Houses Without Doors (includes "A Short Guide to the City" and a shorter version of Mrs. God)
2000: Magic Terror
2007: 5 Stories; Bram Stoker Award nominee
2010: The Juniper Tree and Other Blue Rose Stories
2016: Interior Darkness
Novellas
1982: The General's Wife
1990: Mrs. God (collected in "Houses Without Doors")
1993: The Ghost Village (collected in Magic Terror) (winner of World Fantasy Award) (1993)
1993 Bunny is Good Bread (collected in "Magic Terror")
1997 Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff (collected in "Magic Terror")
1999 Pork Pie Hat (collected in "Magic Terror")
2010: A Special Place – The Heart of a Dark Matter (outtake from "A Dark Matter")
2011: The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine
1990/2012: The Buffalo Hunter: A Novella (originally collected in "Houses Without Doors" in 1990)
2015: Perdido
2017: The Process (is a Process All its Own)
Poems
1971: My Life in Pictures
1972: Ishmael
1972: Open Air
1983: Leeson Park and Belsize Square: Poems 1970 – 1975
Non-fiction
2006: Sides (collection of non-fiction essays)
Anthologies (as editor)
2008: Poe's Children (2008)
2009: American Fantastic Tales (Two Volumes) for the Library of America
Omnibus editions
1984: Wild Animals (collects the novels Julia, If You Could See Me Now, and Under Venus)
Limited editions
2010: The Skylark (an earlier, longer draft of A Dark Matter)
Further reading
Hauntings: The Official Peter Straub Bibliography, Michael R. Collings
Tibbetts, John C. The Gothic Worlds of Peter Straub. Jefferson: McFarland Publishers, 2016
Adaptations
Full Circle (1977), based on Julia (1975)
Ghost Story (1981), based on Ghost Story (1979)
The Talisman (2008 short), based on The Talisman
The Talisman (TBA), an upcoming miniseries based on The Talisman
References
External links
BookBanter interviews Peter Straub (March, 2010)
Database containing descriptive bibliography, publishing history, reviews, and literary criticism of King and Straub's The Talisman
Genealogy of Peter Francis Straub
NYU Press Release about Straub's papers
Peter Straub Penguin Random House author page
Peter Straub Papers, Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University
1943 births
2022 deaths
20th-century American essayists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American poets
20th-century American short story writers
21st-century American essayists
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American novelists
21st-century American poets
21st-century American short story writers
Accidental deaths in New York (state)
American crime writers
American expatriates in England
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American fantasy writers
American horror writers
American male essayists
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American male poets
American male short story writers
American mystery writers
American thriller writers
American anthologists
Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
Ghost story writers
Novelists from Wisconsin
American psychological fiction writers
Surrealist writers
University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni
Weird fiction writers
World Fantasy Award-winning writers
Writers from Brooklyn
Novelists from New York City
Writers from Milwaukee
Writers of Gothic fiction